Film noir: It’s dark. It’s French (well… a French word, at least). And it’s what’s showing at the Ragtag each Tuesday through November.
But what exactly makes a movie a “film noir”? Well, a lot of it is the time period the films were created in. It was during World War II. French critics who, after the war, noticed certain trends in American movies that in previous years hadn’t existed created the term “film noir.” Lokke Heiss, curator of the Ragtag series, defines the trends as being “darker in theme and in how they looked, since these more recent films had a lot of night scenes and dimly lit scenes directly contrasting with the standard, previous Hollywood lighting, where every last inch of the set was bathed in light.”
So, without any longer of an introduction, here are the six films in the series, “noir” in plot and “noir” in style, as well.
**”Out of the Past” (1947)
Showing at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 1**
Heiss dubs this film the “quintessential film noir,” which makes perfect sense, since the main character is a detective hunting down a large amount of money and another man’s mistress. And, naturally, this mistress is the quintessential femme fatale, making the detective fall in love with her only to lie and run away from him. Jeff, the detective, is a victim of circumstances as well, when he is framed for the murder of a man actually committed by his former employer — who had the mistress in the beginning, and somehow ended up with her again. And all of this adds up to a fantastic gun-slinging, heart-breaking ending.
**”Raw Deal” (1948)
Showing at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 8**
Like a lot of excellent movies, this film opens up in a prison, where Joe falls in love with Ann, his social worker. When he breaks out, Joe and his girlfriend (hey, another love triangle!) kidnap Ann, more out of Joe’s attraction for her than anything else. Joe’s girlfriend quickly catches on and becomes jealous of Ann and confronts Joe about it. Meanwhile, Joe’s enemy kidnaps Ann from her kidnappers, and Joe must save her, resulting in a fiery finale. “Raw Deal” is a great film noir that, as Heiss puts it, “completely reverses all the standard film noir structure. In this film we have a homme fatale that the women can’t help fall for. And it’s beautifully shot and directed.”
**”Scarlet Street” (1945)
Showing at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 15**
Chris works as a cashier and has a very overbearing, cruel wife. His one consolation is painting. One day, he saves a woman, Kitty, and convinces hers he is a famous artist. Intrigued, she convinces him to buy a house with her, where she sells his paintings at exorbitantly high prices under her name, propelling Kitty to famous-artist status. Meanwhile, Chris steals money from his employer to make ends meet, his wife’s supposedly dead husband shows up and he catches Kitty and her boyfriend together in his studio. Overall, this film is a mash of lies, fraud, adultery and murder. Artfully film noir.
**”Leave Her To Heaven” (1945)
Showing at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 22**
Can you really love someone to death? In this movie, it just might be possible. There’s certainly quite a few odd deaths, at least, not to mention the mysterious drowning of a man with a disability or the purposeful miscarriage. But murder is a typical attribute of the film noir genre. So what’s so special about this movie? It’s in color. “The color films made sense when the landscape became a major part of the story,” Heiss says. “In other words, the landscape became a major character in the story.”
**”Nightmare Alley” (1947)
Showing at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 29**
As Heiss says, “Not all film noirs have to be about guns and shoot-ups. This movie is about the nasty gritty business of grifting and cons.” And wow, is this film about conning. Stanton, the main character, grew up around sideshow freaks. When he accidentally kills half of one act, he quickly becomes the replacement. Zeena, his partner, becomes jealous of his flirting with Molly, another actress, so he and Molly leave, stealing Zeena’s show and become immensely popular. One day the act backfires, though, and the movie quickly comes full circle.
**”Kiss Me Deadly” (1955)
Showing at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 6**
Detective Mike picks up a woman on the side of a road, but some men kidnap and kill her. Mike wakes up in a hospital, determined to figure out what happened. The results are weird connections between roommates, art dealers, thugs, an evil scientist and a mysterious box. Unfortunately, as Heiss says, “This famous film is arguably the beginning of the end of film noir. It is a hard boiled detective story, but it also satirizes the form at the same time. It’s this self-consciousness that marks the end of an era.”
So, now that the era has ended, let’s celebrate film noir with no more happy endings.